loosening your grip:
Improvising with Language and Movement Language
by Peter Trotman
If indeed we were being watched by
interstellar beings, their study of our ability to communicate would reveal
a surprising fact. All humans speak the same language. The variations, as seen
through those dark, bug-like eyes that miss nothing, would be as minor to them
as the colour variations found amongst petunias. They are still the same flower
with the same structure and function. Universally humans use the same six speech
organs, we all use the same areas of the brain for constructing language, and
we all share the same grammatical system that enables us to build an infinite
number of possible sentences based on a finite collection of building blocks.
We share the same pattern recognition system that enables us to distinguish
phonemes and words.
While other species may have trunks or sonar detection or the ability to generate
electricity, our specialisation is language.
As a species we have also developed a predilection for storytelling and dance
which are found universally across all cultures.
While dance communicates in many ways, it is not language. Language requires grammar, a lexicon of discrete elements that are syntactically combined, and makes use of Wernicke's & Broca's areas of the brain. Sign language is not an exception. It too meets all these criteria but it is not dance.
Problems
Language and dance are two different expressive modes that many of us are interested
in integrating into our performance practice. This integration has been favoured
in the last few years as has the integration of dance with text, film, multimedia,
cyberspace etc. The 'Problem with Language' that so many of us feel is that
as dancers we are habituated to one mode of expression. The world of language
to us seems vast and insecure. Words seem to draw us away from our ability to
focus on movement and sensation. Words are downright terrifying in their significance.
They are inconvenient and awkward.
The obverse 'Problem with Movement'
exists for those intoxicated by the power of language. Words have the ability
to absorb our attention making us forgetful of our bodies, our sensations and
for some of us our contact with reality.
For those of us adept at both modes, it can feel very difficult to shift from
one to the other.
The Unity of Language
and Movement
Describing ourselves as "Improvisers" is helpful because it gives
us greater permission than terms like "actor" or "dancer".
The attitude that it easy to embrace both language and movement, to experience
them as being of the same cloth is very useful. Think of the amphibious creature
that effortlessly moves from the medium of water to that of land and air. In
the same way, we need to learn how to effortlessly slip from one medium to another.
This involves a loosening of our grip and dependence on both.
What do language
and movement have in common?
To start with, the act of speaking is a corporeal experience. It involves extensive
use and coordination of lungs, tongue, lips, larynx, facial muscles, palate,
jaw, eyes, and gestures.
As an exercise, increasing the passion and energy with which we speak greatly
amplifies this natural bodily support for speech production. The more emphatic
we become the less we can help butmove and become totally physically involved.
A lot of the time we suppress this degree of involvement and physical excitement.
The voice is rooted in our physical and mental processes. This embodiment of
our voice is one of the fundamental crossover regions between the two modes.
Another unifying process is our imagination. We can learn to readily respond
to an image with either movement or words and in this way the image unites either
kind of impulse.
We can also imagine how our words may be connected to our bodies, e.g. imagining
that our breath is coming all the way from our feet.
A third approach is to look at the two modes and see how each might be made
more like the other. Can movement be stretched to be more like language? Can
language be stretched to be more like movement? By focussing on how to broaden
the domain of each into the other's territory, it gets easier to shift from
one to the other.
Language-like
Movement
Movements can be associated with words, building a lexicon of movements that
can then be combined, or substituted for language. Similarly words can be assigned
to body parts, directions of movement or attention, locations in space, shapes,
or dynamic qualities. In an improvised performance repetition is required for
both the performer and the audience to learn the associations being made and
how to use and read these movements as language. These techniques allow language
to resemble the discrete elements of language and to substitute for words. A
lexicon is constructed. Frequently the elements of such a lexicon are much clearer
than the spoken word in their emotional expressiveness and betray other dimensions
of the idea being signified. Working with movement in this way I have found
to be very useful.
Something I have never tried is experimenting with movement grammar. This would presuppose a firmly established lexicon and clearly established rules for sequencing these elements along with grammatical markers of some kind to indicate the relationship between elements in a movement sentence. I suspect it would prove impossibly difficult.
Movement-like
Language
Using dance and language together is often like patting your head while rubbing
your stomach. Both consume finite mental resources. It is a situation that demands
that we abdicate some measure of control to our finely honed but largely subconscious
skills. (Our cyborg culture has not yet developed to the point where we can
simply install a new memory chip or upgraded processor card). We are accustomed
to relinquishing control when improvising with movement. We usually focus on
one thing at a time letting everything else take care of itself.
We may feel reluctant to loosen this control with language. It always seems
so important, the meaning of what we are saying having such significance that
every word must be considered for its contribution. But this is not workable.
It produces clunky, laboured text accompanied by disconnected movement.
The way for most of us to get good at language is to work at it often, in a
safe, fun environment. Learn to let go of the necessity of making sense or telling
the truth. Don't be concerned with how stupid you may sound. Forget about "meaning"
for a while. Just get accustomed to verbalising. This will free you to work
with language as you would movement.
Play with its structure, randomise it, juice it and blend it. Play with volume,
speed, pitch, intonation, rhythm, rhyming, alliteration, and slips of the tongue.
There are many different ways of talking from pedestrian, lyrical, poetic, melodramatic,
in character to abstract. Experiment with ways in which text can be transformed
through repetition, shifts in person, tense, addressee, and sequence. Always
prising yourself away from becoming too attached to any content that arises.
What happens when
there is no grammar, just lexicon?
Pay attention to the spaces between words. Don't be in a hurry to move on. Feel
the pleasure of where you are. Allow yourself to experience the reverberations
and associations and images and sensations. Performing improvisationally is
a constant process of moving in and out. The pathways back into movement will
become more available and apparent to you.
Enriching Language
As improvisers we do not have the luxury of considering every word that we utter
in the way that an author can. Revision is not possible. Mistakes are indelible.
The way in which we habitually speak can be a fine vehicle for communication
in performance, but just as with our dance it is useful to develop a broad range
of options. The richness and complexity of written text is a challenge to us
as improvisers in the same way that choreographed work can be a challenge to
our dance. The language we produce will be different to written work, but there
is no reason why it should not be any less rich and engaging.
A few ideas:
vol 6 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3&4 - 2003 vol 5 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 2002 vol 4 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 2001 vol 3 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 2000 vol 2 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 1999 vol 1 ed 1 - ed 2 - ed 3 - ed 4 - 1998 |
e m a i l - <Proximity> |